


Goodwill

by orphan_account



Series: Established Relationship [3]
Category: due South
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray hopes to make it to Goodwill and back before Kowalski even knows about the trip.  He fails at stealth.</p><p>Sequel to "Wrong Pile."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodwill

Ray’s not really sure that giving his suits to Goodwill was the best idea in the world. It’s not that he has trouble giving them up. They’re terrible. They’re so awful that he kind of wants to just burn them and forget he ever bought into fashion to the degree that he spent a couple of years running around Chicago in _that _many yards of extra fabric. Like he had something to hide under all that designer bagginess.__

Kowalski’s good for his ego on a number of levels, not the least of which is his mockery of Ray’s erstwhile style. At first, it had definitely been angry. “Style pig” is not ever going to be a compliment. But Ray wasn’t exactly thrilled with Kowalski at the time, either. But as they got to know each other, and then _really _got to know each other, Kowalski started saying things like, “So, if Tom Ford told you to wear a bag over your head, you’d pretty much do that, huh? ‘Cause you’re just so fucking stylish and all.”__

Ray had been impressed. There was the compliment that was Kowalski’s implication that Ray didn’t need high fashion to be good looking, and also Kowalski had gone to the trouble of finding out who Tom Ford was to really give his comment depth. Kowalski was _researching _his mockery, and that spoke of a level of devotion to the activity that was weirdly flattering.__

That Ray had begun leaving copies of _GQ _around in the hopes that Kowalski might realize he didn’t actually need to dress like…whatever the hell “style” Kowalski was attempting to rock...might have also had something to do with it. But it still showed Ray that Kowalski had actually picked up at least one copy and looked at it.__

Ray knew, as an objective fact, that Kowalski was better looking with fewer clothes on, and looked best completely naked. Kowalski was trying, in his own way, to convince Ray that the same was true of him. Ray didn’t really buy it, but with the wisdom of age, he had to admit that his baggy 90s look was not only out-of-date, but had never really been his friend at all. So now he really wanted to get rid of the suits, and clearly Goodwill was the best option as tempting as the whole Armani bonfire idea was. He’d spent some serious, if ill-advised, coin on some of that stuff. Plus Goodwill took broken appliances and people who might not otherwise have jobs or skills fixed them. If some man or woman with a developmental disability could make a toaster work again, maybe another person, similarly afflicted, might turn out to be a wizard with scissors, needle and thread and rehabilitate the suits into something that wouldn’t be an unaltered affliction upon the land.

Deep down, Ray knew the stuff would probably just be dry-cleaned and put on the racks, but, hey maybe some high school drama club could use them for a production of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Well, maybe not high school, not for that play. “Guys and Dolls.” Kids today would just see the suits as “old” and not appreciate the difference between 1950s old and 1990s old.

The other reason Ray was a little worried about Goodwill was that Kowalski would want to come with him. Not just to make sure that Ray really did drop the clothes off (like he was going to sneak them off to a Public Storage locker in the hopes that fashion’s pendulum would once more favor ill-fitting clothes), but to do a little shopping of his own. Ray got growing up borderline poor. He got being tight with a buck, and Kowalski’s motto of “Never pay retail” had saved them a bundle on their household budget. But Kowalski’s wardrobe did not need an assist from the kind of place that would take Ray’s old suits.

Of course the Goodwill trip ended up happening. Ray had just wanted to hit the drive through drop-off, but his attempts to sneak out early one Saturday to keep Kowalski out of the expedition came to nothing. Kowalski thought he was sneaking off for breakfast pastry, and insisted on joining him. Any hope Ray had entertained that they could confine their drop-off to the drive through were dashed when a cheerful lady gave him both a blank receipt for tax purposes (which Ray was very much in favor of, even though he’d eventually have to figure out what the depreciation rate on suits was) as well as, and this is where she went from “cheerful lady” to “malevolent force in the universe” in Ray’s book, a coupon for five dollars off any purchase over five dollars.

Kowalski had that coupon in his hot little hand before Ray had even processed what the Goodwill lady had just done to him.  
“That’s it, Vecchio, we’re going in,” Kowalski said cheerfully. Ray parked the car and slouched into the store while Kowalski gleefully skipped from aisle to aisle. The fucker even took a goddamned shopping cart with him. Ray just skulked around the t-shirt racks until Kowalski came back with a pile of junk.

“What the hell, Kowalski?” Ray demanded. “Is that a bundt cake pan?”

“It is,” Kowalski said. “And the fact that you recognized it means you know we need one.”

Ray poked through Kowalski’s other dubious “finds.”

“Maybe I recognized the cake pan, but do you even know what half this shit does?” Ray demanded, pointing to a grab box of hand-powered kitchen gadgets.

“I figure anything we can’t use in the kitchen, we can see if it’s any good as a sex toy,” Kowalski said, ogling Ray.

“A vegetable peeler is _always _just a vegetable peeler, Kowalski,” Ray said in his best no-means-no voice.__

“Which we happen to need. I tried peeling a cucumber with the one we’ve got, and now you know why that cuke ended up in the blender,” Kowalski said, not unjustifiably. Their vegetable peeler reallly was a rusted-out shell of its former self. They were lucky no one had been injured yet.

“Also,” Kowalski continued, “I found a coffee table that will, with some sandpaper, paint and effort, be very useful.”

“We have a coffee table,” Ray protested feebly. Kowalski was going to take all of this bullshit home, and there was little Ray could do to stop him. 

Kowalski lowered his voice. “One, it is chrome and glass and this is not 1985. B, it is chrome and glass and there’s no way my tying you naked to it is going to end well for either of us. Especially you.”

Ray could not argue with that. Did not want to argue with that.

“So are we ready here?” Kowalski demanded, his voice a bit louder. Ray was pretty ready all right. Ready to find out if he was going to be face up or face down on the new-to-them coffee table. Both possibilities had merit.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

“Wait,” Kowalski said abruptly. Ray halted. Had Kowalski changed his mind about the coffee table? Because Ray was now totally behind that particular purchasing decision.

“What’s that?” Kowalski demanded. Ray shifted uncomfortably. “Did you actually find something? An article of clothing, perhaps?”

Ray handed it over. “Jesus H. Christ on a cracker,” Kowalski said with blasphemous reverence. “Is that from the 1973 NBA All Star Game?”

Ray took refuge in sarcasm. “Says so right on the front,” he pointed out.

Kowalski looked at him. “Now do you see the value in shopping at Goodwill?”

Ray rolled his eyes. No way was he going to admit that he’d seen the value in shopping at Goodwill the minute Kowalski had told him why he was picking up a sturdier coffee table. Ray still didn’t know how he was going to end up on that table, but he was damn sure going to make sure he was correctly groomed and clean beyond clean for any possibility when the time came.

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write something goofy and fun after that last set of stories. I am actually capable of writing something and not posting it, but not in this instance.


End file.
